The present study focused on the following novels: Arktinen hysteria (Arctic hysteria) (1967, 1968) by Marko Tapio and the Täällä Pohjantähden alla (Here Beneath the North Star) trilogy and Tuntematon sotilas (The Unknown Soldier) by Väinö Linna. By analyzing transtextuality between these works the present study examined how Tapio’s novel sets itself into dialogue with Linna’s works. More particularly, the present study examined how and with what kind of literature and ideological means Tapio accomplished his mission.Gerard Genette´s model of transtextuality, which consists of architextuality, hypertextuality and paratextuality, was used as the theoretical framework and a method for the analysis of the transtextual relationships between Tapio´s and Linna´s works. Architextuality entails questions of genre; with the Pohjantähti trilogy Arktinen hysteria shares the genre of family saga, and with Tuntematon sotilas the genre of war fiction. Tapio sets his novel into dialogue with Linna’s realism through modernist elements. He depicts the same events as Linna before him, but through a modernist, rational and elitist first person narrator, and by using modernist narrative strategies such as the stream of consciousness and the fragmented time structure. The whole novel is based on Harri’s inner monologue of 20 minutes, which underlies the stream of consciousness kind of traits of the novel, and the author’s modernist approach to the topic. Tapio’s way of highlighting subjectivity suggests that he did not aim at describing some objective reality, but at creating a new whole of the themes that Linna dealt with in his work. In Linna´s trilogy, for example, the depiction of the Civil war and the Depression is constructed through the literary means of realism, which include a chronological narrative, the omniscient narrator, changing focalization and inner monologues. Thus Linna’s realist depiction can interpreted as a determined intention at objectivity.Modernism manifests itself in Arktinen hysteria for example as pessimism related to existential questions. The first person narrator, Harri Björkharry, denies God and confesses that he admires strong leaders, and war was a method for renewing the human kind. In fact, the novel’s individualism cannot be analyzed without Nietzsche’s philosophy. Thus, one of the conclusions of the present study is that the world view of Arktinen hysteria, with its modernist characteristics, is pessimistic, while that of Pohjantähti is optimistic. In addition, the relationship between the good and the evil is very complex in Tapio’s work, in comparison to that of Linna’s.As a genre, family saga is an example of how Tapio brings forth a contradictory and complex whole of the themes that Linna has brought up in his works. The first person narrator in Arktinen hysteria questions his father’s great mission, whereas the son portrayed in the Täällä Pohjantähden alla trilogy does not. The mimesis of the novels was analyzed simultaneously with the analysis of the documentary characteristics of the works.Arktinen hysteria, published more than ten years after Linna’s realist war novel, takes a different approach to mimesis. Its mere modernist characteristics, the fragmented narration and the effects of alienation, among others, suffice it to break the illusion of mimesis constantly. Arktinen hysteria is caught between two worlds. On the structural level it represents modernism; from the 1960s ideological point of view it represents ”reaction” in its focus on patriotism and entrepreneurship. However, this impression of ”being caught between two worlds” can be expressed differently, too: Tapio’s work has a hypertextual relationship to that of Linna’s, but at the same time it rewrites Linna’s themes for other purposes. Therefore, Arktinen hysteria can be seen as a novel that travels against the stream of its own context. Arktinen hysteria suggests that modernism can also bear traits of nationalism and provincialism
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